Story Highlights

MADISON, Wis. — It was a typical February day at the state Capitol. The wind chill was 15 degrees, city plows scraped at the snow, and about 30 people stood on the sidewalk, singing songs that could get them ticketed and fined.

"(Gov.) Scott Walker will never push us out, this house was made for you and me," sang the makeshift choir that calls itself the Solidarity Singers.

The group began daily protest songs at the Capitol nearly two years ago when Walker, a Republican, unveiled a plan to strip most public union workers of many of their bargaining powers, while forcing them to pay more for their benefits.

The plan spurred massive protests at the Capitol, caused 14 Democratic state senators to briefly flee the state to delay a vote and prompted organized recall efforts against state lawmakers and the governor.

Despite the chaos and opposition in Madison, the union measures passed on March 11, 2011. Republicans ultimately retained full control of the Legislature and Walker won a recall election on June 5, 2012.

But the anger has not yet subsided.

Today, as Walker prepares to introduce his second two-year budget Wednesday, small groups of protesters continue to make noise at the Capitol. In recent months, Wisconsin's Capitol police have been cracking down, issuing more than 100 citations for offenses like failing to obtain a permit to demonstrate. On Monday, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin filed a federal lawsuit aimed at blocking the crackdown.

And both houses of the Republican-controlled Legislature recently passed tougher rules on observer conduct that can get spectators tossed from the chambers for offenses like taking a picture, displaying a sign, reading a newspaper or wearing a hat.

Some First Amendment advocates have taken issue with the Capitol crackdown.

"The gallery rules we find problematic from a First Amendment standpoint, but also from an open government standpoint," said Christopher Ahmuty, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin. "You don't have the right to in the Assembly or Senate galleries and be disruptive, because they are not traditional public forums. But this really seems that the leaders in both houses were thinking more back to the days of the 'occupy the Capitol' ... and have come up with rules that really have the effect of prohibiting non-disruptive behavior in the galleries."

Meanwhile, Republicans who control the Legislature say order needed to be restored.

State Sen. Mike Ellis, R-Neenah, the Senate president, said past protests at the Capitol have been threatening.

"They wanted not just to express their discontent, they wanted to punish," Ellis said. "And I felt intimidated. We had picketers out in front of my farm. They were scaring our horses, they were making by wife nervous, and that went beyond. So I'm not going to apologize for one minute."

Rep. Penny Bernard Schaber, an Appleton Democrat, admitted protesters can be disruptive and sometimes need to be reminded that they are going beyond their free speech rights.

"But other times I think we're too punitive with them when they haven't been disruptive because (lawmakers) just want to avoid it," she said.

Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, a non-profit group that advocates open government, said his hope is that the rules follow the path of the post 9/11 security of the Capitol. Then, the state erected barricades and blocked most Capitol entrances. But eventually, the state hauled the barricades away and unlocked the doors.

"I think if the Republicans are smart, these policies they put in place to limit demonstrations won't last that long," Heck said. "If they keep them in place for the long haul, that will just continue the bitterness."

Joe Heim, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, said there still seems to be some animosity between political parties in the Legislature, but he thinks the governor has moved on from the divisive union issues that fueled past protests and has not given any signal that he will include measures in his new budget that will spur more massive protests.

"He has been moving toward the middle and sounding more conciliatory," he said.

There have been some demonstrators who have done more than hold signs and sing protest songs. In January, police arrested a man who entered the Capitol armed with non-flammable Molotov cocktails.

But retired state employee Martha Florey of Madison said the Solidarity Singers are peaceful. She recently stood outside the Capitol armed with a tambourine.

"I don't like my civil liberties being abridged the way they have since this state was taken over by some real extremists," she said.

Robert Jambois, a former district attorney and state attorney, has been representing ticketed Solidarity Singers in court. He said he became involved because of his belief in the First Amendment.

"I believed they were constitutionally protected in what they were doing," he said.

He said the Solidarity Singers have been singing protest songs in and around the Capitol every weekday at noon, for 100 weeks.

Jambois said there was an initial crackdown against demonstrators in 2011 and things quieted down before a new police chief began a new crackdown against demonstrators in September. Jambois said someone holding a sign was ticketed and people holding a banner were cited for holding "hazardous material." Many others were cited for holding or authorizing an unlawful assembly.

Jambois says many of the cases have been or will be dismissed in court, and he said he will continue to litigate the issue.

Stephanie Marquis, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Administration, said the Capitol's permitting process has been in place since 1979.

"Both state and federal court cases have found that permit requirements are constitutional and do not infringe on free speech," she said in a statement. "All groups must follow the permitting process, and the Capitol Police issue hundreds of permits each year regardless of political party, affiliation or content."